Installers of kitchen counter tops made from plastic laminates such as "Formica" usually find it necessary to cut from a large laminate sheet an L-shaped or a U-shaped section. This necessitates the formation of one or two interior right angle corners in the sheet material. Similar cutting procedures are involved where the laminates are used to cover wall surfaces around window openings.
The fact that the laminate has a great tendency to crack at the interior corner is a difficult problem for the installer or carpenter to deal with without ruining the expensive material. The problem is compounded by the fact that the installer must handle the cut laminate several different times, sometimes up to five times, before final installation. For example, the material is roughly cut out, picked up and placed on a counter top and scribed to show where it must be further cut for a finished fit. It is then removed from the counter top to be cut along the scribe lines, is placed back on the counter top to check the fit, and then removed and inverted to receive a coating of contact cement on the rear side. Finally, when the cement is dry enough for installation, the laminate is turned over and placed permanently on the counter top. Each such handling increases the likelihood of cracking at interior corners. Such cracking can be very costly as where the entire piece is ruined.
Traditionally, to reinforce the material during handling, installers apply masking tape across the interior corners. This procedure, while helpful, is only partly effective and the piece must be handled with great care to prevent interior corner cracking.
The present invention is concerned with a complete and practical solution to the above problem through provision of a simple unitary interior corner guard of tough relatively rigid material which is slipped onto each interior corner like a paper clip by the installer to greatly reinforce the corner region against bending during necessary handling of the laminate and thus essentially eliminating the hazard of cracking the material.
Preferably, the guard is of triangular form with rounded corners and is formed of a tough plastics material by molding. In some cases, a built-up guard consisting of several pieces permanently assembled can be utilized. In all cases, the corner guard includes two outer plate sections to straddle the plastic laminate and an intermediate interior corner filler section which is moved into contact with the converging angular edges of the laminate forming the interior corner. For further convenience, the guard, if desired, can be made of transparent plastic. It may also be grooved or marked near its rear corners to provide a visual indication of the proper alignment with the laminate edges forming the inside corner. Near its rear end, the guard can be ribbed or grooved to promote a better finger grip for removing the guard from the laminate when it has served its intended purpose. The guard can be constructed to snugly grip the laminate between the two outer plates thereof for maximum effectiveness.
The below-listed prior United States patents of some general interest relative to this invention are made of record under 37 C.F.R. 1.56:
U.S. Pat. No. 209,024 PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 643,952 PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 1,016,278 PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 2,203,987 PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 2,417,961 PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 3,030,728 PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 3,679,198.